shah82 wrote:$50 versus $200-$300? I think I can do better than purple dayi anything, even if I try for 2003 blended tea.

$200-300? I'm not seeing those prices.

And yes, for 10 years of storage, paying $200 is really not that crazy, especially if it's been well stored. You are most likely better off buying one old one than buying four cakes of $50 new tea and trying to store it yourself.

I did a random looksee of 2003 7542 on Taobao and checked out the ones with purple ink. I automatically discounted things that were too cheap, by my (could be incorrect) estimation. I also could be confusing 2003 variants of special makes like the 208, which also seems to use purple ink red dayi wrappers.

By and large, I'm not that interested in any Dayi makes that aren't special grade from 2005 and before. My 2001 simplified and my tasting of the 208 are much louder and mouthfilling in taste than any other Dayi product I've had. Even nice stuff like the 2005 Mengsong Peacock is a pretty narrow, and somewhat quieter tea. For blended tea, I think the best bet is to find taiwanese products from 2005-2007. There are *lots* of pretty well aging blended tea from that era that would be cheap to acquire by tong on Taobao. Even going the expensive route, wouldn't it be cheaper and a long term better idea to buy a 2005 Chen Guanghe Tang Menghai Wild Leaf, with approved of storage, rather than a Dayi purple from 2003? All you have to do is wait a couple of years!

MarshalN wrote:Of course, but the point I was trying to make was just that for $50 for this new Dayi we're talking about here, there are way better ways of spending that $50 for tea than buying this cake.